I suppose it is a trite saying that home is where you hang your hat. Well, I guess that is true of Wichita, Kansas. It feels pretty much like my hometown having, come to think of it, lived here at least part of all (nearly) seven decades of my life. I have family and friends here. It is pretty laid-back. And I like the nature here.
By the way, the usual German word is “Waldeinsamkeit” (“forestsolitude“), but no place in this area qualifies as forest, so I settled on the “wild” part.
A Walk in the Park
Riding Around Town
Next: Eldorado and wild horses of the Flint Hills!
We have been here in Colombia for almost a month, slowly wending our way from Bogota northeastward with a general goal of maybe flying out from Cartegena, Bucaramanga, or whatever seems feasible. It has been an enjoyable trip. Especially after leaving Bogota, events there in the news made us a bit leery of lingering.
After That we made our way to Tunja, Duitama, San Gil, Barichara – Thank you kind lady sitting next to me on the plane coming down for telling me about this gem of a town! – and now we are in Giron, also a colonial white-walled town similar to Barichara, but somewhat grittier.
I have been so occupied with exploring these towns – and also my other writing projects – that I neglected this blog. Since I have so many good nature photos accumulated that seems like a way to remedy my publishing hiatus here. Below are some of the Colombian beauties we saw, mostly birds:
All the photos below are from Giron, a town just a few kilometers outside of Bucaramanga.
I hope to write more next time about the towns that we have visited this last month, especially Barichara and Tunja. Hopefully in a few weeks. Or maybe I will finish my set on Africa and start writing about our Malaysia adventures.
The best experience I had in Africa, I would say, is in South Africa – here in Riversdale. Also the worst experience – Rustenburg. (But I am not planning on writing about that town).
The title of this article is more for the sake of rhyme than reason. Our stay in Cape Town was pleasant enough. But after a while we were wondering what the rest of the country was like. We were looking for some places that were not as touristic and, hopefully, still affordable to visit. That last factor proved more difficult the more we researched. Hotels and guesthouses were rather pricey. Luckily we found a suitable and affordable one in Riversdale, Rusticana Guest House.
I would really like to return to Riversdale. The place and the people intrigue me. But I don’t think we will. It is rather expensive to fly to South Africa and, once you are there, bus travel (train being almost totally non-existent now) is very problematic. For instance, we wanted to go up from George to see Oudsshoorn, famous for the Ostrich farms and canyonlands, a few hours to the north. But the only bus available for us at that time left around midnight. And the bus station in George is in a very unsafe part of town. Added to this, the buses were often late.
Next: Speaking of George, that will be the next article.
Traveling on to Francistown was a tricky proposition since we did not have our own vehicle. First we had to walk down to the intersection that passes for downtown Nata. And then we had to find a van heading south, waiting for quite a while in the van until we have a full compliment of passengers, something we call “achieving valence”. This should make sense if you took chemistry in school. This time we had to wait quite a while for the final two or three “electrons”!
Francistown was a bit of a disappointment, for me at least. If I may borrow and misuse Gertrud Stein’s comment on Oakland, California, I felt “there is no there there“. I mean the town has some history but they have managed to effectively obliterate most of it, covering it with malls and shabby-looking supermarkets. The most interesting place was the open air market right up against the bus terminal.
We also had trouble at first finding a good hotel. With a map app in hand we walked to where I thought was an affordable place. I finally found the place, opened the gate and knocked on the door. I was told, “This is not a hotel anymore. And you better leave the yard because there is a dog here that bites.”
This was now the second hotel off my list, the first being way too expensive just by looking at it. I was down to my last choice, the historical Diggers Inn. It was over $40 a night. I was going to settle for that and move on the next night but, luckily, I noticed just then another hotel just a block away that that was less than half that, City Inn. This place was perfectly suitable. End of a long travel day.
We spent two days in Nata and then walked the mile or so to the junction that pretends to be downtown Nata in order to get a van to take us to Francistown.
Nata has an importance way beyond its actual size. Although it is the 49th largest town in Botswana it is one that many travelers come to because it is on an important junction. For us, the main draw was seeing those Bush babies.
When I first started to write of our experiences in Nicaragua I did not think it would require ten articles, but that is what happened. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Hmm, according to my Flickr site I have 2,296 pictures of Nicaragua, so I guess it could have run to a lot more then ten articles!
Here are the article links and a short excerpt from each of them:
Nicaraguan Adventures “When I first planned to write about our trips to Nicaragua I thought I would just make it a one-off. But the more I looked at the many photos I had to choose from – and the more those photos brought back memories almost forgotten – I realized that this will be another multi-parter, just like my Ukraine articles. Oh well, too many photos and too many memories is a good problem to have.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 2: Ometepe Island “Volcan Concepcion dominates the left half of the photo. This was taken as our ferry approached Moyogalpa, also visible on the left. On the far right distance is Volcan Madera, the other volcano that makes up this dumbbell-shaped island. Most nature enthusiasts try to make it to this more remote volcano because the wilderness is better protected there. But, at least when we were there, the roads were worse and the hotels more expensive.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 3: Granada “What a contrast this Granada was with the one we had seen in Spain, the city this one was named after by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba in 1524, after having, along with Ponce de Leon and Hernan Cortes, conquered the country! Things did not go so well for him in later years when his patriotism lost its luster in the eyes of the new king. He was beheaded. But – on the positive side – his head was immortalized on the new national currency named after him – the cordoba!”
Nicaraguan Adventures 4: Diria and Masaya “This town, founded 1523, is famous for medicine and magic, curanderos and shamans. On the festival of San Pedro the excited locals “accompany” the saint as he inspects the village, dancing (the townfolk, not Saint Peter) and, in the case of two or three men I saw in a video, waving around machetes like batons. I guess people come here from far and wide to see this, but my wife and I have seen such goings-on before.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 5: Jinotepe and Leon “These two towns have at least one thing in common although they are not real near each other: They both had no decent hotel available for us. Consequently we spent only one night in each town. So there will be less commentary and more pictures for this segment.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 6: Jinotega, Selva Negra, and Matagalpa “This is the scene my wife and I, sitting down after a hike up the mountain, were enjoying when the masked young man came out of the bushes. “I want that phone”, he said, holding up his machete. My wife threw down some money, but he didn’t want that.
“Give me the phone or I’ll kill you.“
“Kill me then“, I said, standing up. At the same time my wife stood up and yelled, “Ladron!” (“Thief”). At this point he lost his nerve, running back into the bushes. I threw a rock at him but don’t think I hit him. We were a bit shaken after this and reported the incident to the police. They faulted us for not going up the mountain with a police escort! I doubt if they even filed a report.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 7: Sebaco, Boaco, and Juigalpa “The high point of the town of Juigalpa – literally – is the Mirador Loma de Tamames also called the Mirador Sandino boasts a two dimensional representation – also literally -of their heroic General Sandino. A pleasant enough setting to enjoy the view and relax on benches decorated with paintings of cattle and birds that are now rarely seen near the town.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 8: Somoto & Chinandega “We stayed at the aptly-named Hotel Panamericano, two blocks off of the international highway of the same name. Of course, “highway” may be misleading. This is just a main two-lane road cluttered with slow-moving traffic, pedestrians, and donkeys. In fact, Somoto is also called “el Pueblo de los Burros” – “Town of the Donkeys”.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 9: Esteli “In many ways Esteli is quite the contrast to Chinandega (see previous article). The city , 3rd or 7th largest in the country, depending on which website you believe, it manages a laid-back atmosphere without the sketchiness of the previous town.”
“Many of the murals had revolutionary themes. Not surprisingly seeing that this city suffered immensely during the revolution in the 1980’s. The Nicaraguan populace finally won freedom over the Somoza dictatorship but not before serious bombardments from the latter. Esteli, especially, suffered major damage.”
Nicaraguan Adventures 10: Ocotal & Mozonte “American history that did not make it into most American history books, certainly not the ones I taught with: Uncle Sam turning Nicaragua into its own bloody stomping ground. I have taught high school and junior high history for several years and never came across the embarrassing information I learned from my visit of the local history museum here in Ocotal. I knew the general strokes, the “who” and “where“, but never really processed the underlying “why” of it all. From the 1930’s to the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 1980’s our country’s actions were quite at odds with the democratic platitudes we preached. We were not on the side of the angels on this one.”
Somoto, refers to the town and the canyon just a few miles north. We stayed at the aptly-named Hotel Panamericano, two blocks off of the international highway of the same name. Of course, “highway” may be misleading. This is just a main two-lane road cluttered with slow-moving traffic, pedestrians, and donkeys. In fact, Somoto is also called “el Pueblo de los Burros” – “Town of the Donkeys”. The hotel was cheap enough and the owner was very accommodating. The only sad part was seeing those nervous spider monkeys kept in small cages.
The photos are from our two separate trips, November 2018 and May 2019.
We were planning on exploring the area outside of town but found the surrounding hills hard to get to. Also we had heard that robberies have been known to happen in the hills close to town. So we took the local bus to go to a famous, and safer, canyon of the name as the town. It was worth the trip. Somoto Canyon is maybe two kilometers from the Honduran border.
Next: Chinandega, a sketchy little town that kept us on our toes. See the map for the location of both of these towns.
And this article, for the most part, focuses on the “wild” part, not so much the nondescript town. I went through my pictures just now and I found very few of the town itself, the buildings and almost invariably sandy streets, that were interesting.
The next two posts are going to be about our recent trip through Botswana. Most of the better photos and memories are of this country are of the very first town we came to – Kasane. The town itself was remarkably unremarkable. The biggest interest of Kasane was not the buildings or streets but the animals that made the streets their home. When we first came to town we were told not to go out at night.
“Why? Muggers?” “No, the elephants come down from the hills and come to town.”
Below: African Fish Eagle, Terathopius ecaudatus. We saw this magnificent bird towards the end of our stay in Kasane, but I thought it would be a good photo to start with. I was so glad I was looking in the right direction to get this shot.
We were slowly working our way through first Namibia and then Botswana. I still plan to write about those earlier trips. This is the border entrance to both Botswana and Chobe National Park. The Baobab tree is host to a Weaver “village” and also some Green Woodhoopoes (next photo).Green Woodhoopoe, Phoeniculus purpureus. Almost every time I saw these birds they were a threesome. Noisy and very active.The first unusual wildlife we saw was this rare Southern Ground Hornbill, Bucorvus leadbeateri, walking down the road.And the, a minute or two later, I got my first good look – and shot – at an African Elephant. As it turns out this was the only good look we had at one. Later on we had more encounters, but not this close. More on that below.Above and Below: Chacma BaboonsThese Chacmas were on the shopping center roof. Food (garbage) is plentiful. When the litter did not suffice they do what I saw an enterprising male do. He came down to the open air food court, crouching on the rim of the trash can, picked out what he wanted, throwing over his shoulder what he didn’t.Kasane. The town is not much to look at.General store near our guest house. We opted to walk the extra distance to the Pic-n-Pay in the center.Another noisy trio, the well-named Arrow-marked Babbler, Turdoides jardineii.Southern Cordonbleu, Uraeginthus angolensisPearl-spotted Owlet, Glaucidium perlatumThe Hamerkop, Scopus umbretta, flying can easily be mistaken for a bird of prey.Beautiful Carmine Bee-eaters, Merops nubicoides, snarfing up dragonflies and other insects in the parking lot of the grocery store. Very tame too.I love these majestic baobabs. Kasane, Botswana. Several times we came across these knobby giants,
Every morning we went for a nature walk, striking out in different directions. We didn’t know it but on some of those days we were within the Chobe National Park. Elephant scat on our path – a path they probably made themselves! Also we spooked a crocodile from the bank before I could get a good picture of him sunning.One of our favorite places is this riverside area just a mile or so out of town. Chobe River. Namibia is just across the river. We saw the Fish Eagle from this deck. And we also saw – first heard! – the Hippopotamus (below).We finally saw a hippo in the wild! I heard him first with his high-pressure air blast as he came up from the river. Photo was taken from the relative safety of the wooden walkway in the previous photo.The wooden walkway, dilapidated in places, kept us at a safe distance from any hippos and crocs. But as we followed the boardwalk I looked ahead at this group, several dozen Macaques (also called Baboons but that would ruin my alliteration). I was more concerned about the morose movement of those guys watching us from the roof of an abandoned (closed supposedly for renovation) Wildlife Exhibit. We decided to backtrack. There are several churches like this in the forest.Trucking down the Chobe River.Going to school.Marabou Storks, Leptoptilos crumenifer, and Impalas (We counted about 90 of them near an old quarry). We saw these as we took a dirt path back to the highway. We saw no one on the path. Perhaps it was unwise for us to go on this rarely used path. The animals certainly seemed surprised to see us.The path not taken. Why not? We heard loud elephant trumeting. We took the other path (where we saw the Impalas).Waiting for the bus. This is the main highway through town.Warthogs are all through the town, emerging from muddy culverts, tearing up gardens. But they are pretty docile to humans, sort of like squirrels in America. Grunting, tail-swishing, free-roaming squirrels.The Waterbuck stops here. Good thing too, giving me time for a quick shot.Banded Mongoose. More dumpster divers.